live for me
by Assemble-the-Avengers
Summary: His eyes slid up slowly to look at her and Clarke gasped aloud at the sheer agony pooling in them. "Hey," she breathed out, bringing both hands up to frame his face. When his eyes left hers again, she dropped her hands and pulled the vest from his, hanging it on its hook by the door. bellarke/bellamy!cop AU bellarke!parents


i dont own the 100. if i did bellarke would be official.

She knew she wasn't supposed to listen to the scanner or watch the news while he was working. He had warned her against that and she knew from experience that it was never a good idea. But she hadn't heard his voice in almost twenty hours. Charlotte was out with Octavia. Jake was still sleeping off the remnants of his fever. Aurora and Julia were sound asleep for at least another hour. She just wanted to hear his voice and so she broke her own rule; crawled under the covers on his side of the bed, letting herself drown in his scent for a minute before she hit play on the broadcast and waited.

Within the hour that she spent listening to each emergency call, she dozed off a total of three times. She woke up to sirens over the scanner and the yelling of many voices she recognized. Her heart dropped into her stomach and nausea flooded her system because she knew exactly what those codes meant. Clarke sat up and clutched her phone tighter in her hand only to be forced to switch it off instantly when a little voice whimpered "mommy" in the doorway.

He wasn't due home until after bedtime, about an hour after Octavia and Charlie were due home and a good three hours after Jake, Aurora and Jules were in bed.

When she actually heard the sound of the door unlocking and opening, she was just laying Jules down again after the first feeding of the night. Charlotte was asleep and Octavia was in her room, undoubtedly blasting too loud music through her headphones. She tried to give them privacy whenever her brother first got home from a long shift.

It took much more self control than Clarke was willing to admit to not rush out of her baby girl's room and wake her up in the process. She had been worrying herself sick wondering what had happened. The sound of Velcro echoed in the sleeping house and Clarke's shoulders dropped in relief.

Only, when she emerged from the small nursery, Bellamy was standing there, gun held limply in one hand, Kevlar in the other, face devoid of…anything.

"Bellamy?" she called carefully, one hand on the back of the couch as she made her way through the messy living room to where he stood motionless at the front door. "Bellamy." She called out again, reaching out and flattening her palm against his chest. "Look at me," she murmured gently.

His eyes slid up slowly to look at her and Clarke gasped aloud at the sheer agony pooling in them. "Hey," she breathed out, bringing both hands up to frame his face. When his eyes left hers again, she dropped her hands and pulled the vest from his, hanging it on its hook by the door. Then she took one hand, trailed it slowly down his arm until she could wrap her fingers around his wrist and used her free hand to ease the gun from his shaking fingers. With his hands empty, there was nothing stopping the shaking. "Who?" she whispered.

Clarke watched something break inside her husband at those three letters and grunted with the force of all of his weight falling on her as he collapsed and slid down the wall to the floor. His head tipped back against the wall. Clarke bit her lip and crawled onto his lap, straddling his hips so that she was facing him, guiding his forehead to her shoulder, keeping one hand on the back of his head and the other around his shoulders, trying to hold him together as best she could.

"Jasper," he breathed, voice breaking hard and then his hands came up and twisted into her shirt, holding onto her for dear life as the dam broke and his ever so rare tears started soaking into her shirt. It was only by sheer force of will that she didn't cry with him. He was holding her so tight she could barely breathe and her ribs were starting to ache.

"Wow, okay, sorry, just getting some water," Octavia's highly amused voice came from behind them. Bellamy stiffened and Clarke gripped onto him tighter. "Bell?" she questioned, all hints of teasing replaced by worry.

"O, go back to bed." Clarke said softly. Octavia eyed her brother carefully, then nodded reluctantly and turned around, glancing back only once before the sound of her bedroom door shutting could be heard. "Bellamy, hey," Clarke's voice sounded scared even to her own ears because she could feel his pulse and could feel the too face rise and fall of his chest against hers. "Breathe," she begged. "Please, for me, Bell. Come on."

"I was right there," he said. "I didn't see the kid pull a gun. He's dead." Sucking in air like a fish out of water.

Clarke leaned her forehead against his and kissed the tears off his cheeks only to have them be replaced by others.

"It isn't your fault, Bell." She whispered.

"Please don't."

"Okay," Clarke relented. Just this once. Just gripped him tighter and let him cry, let him blame himself for just a minute because he needed to.

He showed no signs of ever moving. His taser was digging into her thigh and she knew Jules was going to wake up soon enough. She was relatively certain she was going to wind up with bruises. He was holding her like she was going to leave him too.

"Bellamy," she whispered. "It wasn't your fault." She murmured into the top of his hair, stroking through the short strands. He ignored her just like he always did when she said something nice to him. It always broke her heart a little bit.

"Clarke, I was there." He said. "You should've been there." He scowled. "You would've seen it."

"Bellamy," she chastised. "Tell me what happened." She countered. He explained and the more details she got the less and less it was even possible to blame him. There was no way he could've noticed it at all. He had done the best he could. But at the end of the day one of his closest friends was still dead and he wasn't. "That's it, isn't it." She realized, sighing painfully and staring straight into his brown eyes.

"What?" he asked cautiously, voice cracking.

"You're here and he's not." She tried to keep the anger out of her voice, but even after everything, with all of their girls and their baby boy, he still saw so little value in his life over anyone else's. He glanced away from her, knowing the lecture he was about to get word for word.

"Clarke," he sighed.

"Why do you deserve to live and he doesn't, right?" she snapped.

"But I don't!" he shouted. Clarke shushed him and glanced at the baby monitor, listening for her kids.

"Really?" she whispered back. "You would rather Octavia, Charlotte, Jacob, Rory and Jules grow up without you?" He sighed and reached up to brush her hair out of her eyes. "You'd rather leave me? Than have him die for the cause he knowingly put his life at risk for every single day?" She realized, with great annoyance, that she was crying when Bellamy used his thumbs to wipe tears off her face.

"Clarke," he started.

"No." she said sharply, covering his mouth with her hand. "Shut the fuck up and listen to me." He fell silent. "I know he's your best friend. I know, okay. He was my friend too." Her voice broke because that was the first time she had said out loud that the godfather of her children, the man who had been with her through every close call with Bellamy, who had driven her to the hospital when she'd gone into labor with Aurora, was _dead. _"But Bellamy, I would have shot him myself if it meant protecting you." She whispered. Bellamy sighed; he hated it when she said shit like that. "Don't look at me like that. There are five people in this world who I would kill you for and Jasper isn't one of them. You have three little girls, a baby boy, a sister, and a niece and nephew who need you. _I _need you. I need you to stay safe every day because I need you here with me. I need you to come home after every shift because I need you. You are my everything, Bellamy." He was silent for a minute and then he looked at her with red rimmed eyes.

"You're wrong." He smiled weakly. Clarke sighed disappointedly. It'd been twelve years and she couldn't get through to him no matter what she did. "_You're _my best friend." He whispered. Clarke laughed a little sadly and then leaned forward, wrapping her arms around him, and tucking her face into his neck. They stayed there, him just breathing _her, _immobile, until their baby's crying echoed through the monitor. Clarke watched the way his baby girl's voice made a little life return to his haunted eyes and smiled gently.

"I've got to go to the bathroom. Can you go quiet her down and I'll meet you in there?" she asked. He was none the wiser as he stood, still holding her to him.

"Yes ma'am." He smiled, and kissed her forehead, lowering her to the ground. She took the video monitor with her into their room, locked the bathroom door behind her and watched him enter Julia's room.

She sank to the floor and cried as she watched him pick up the tiny baby girl, hold her to his chest, mutter to her in heartbroken whispers. Then he started to cry all over again, tears falling into the fabric of her onesie. Jules fell silent. Almost like she knew, and cooed at her daddy, trying her hardest to ease his pain. Her little hand wrapped around his finger and Clarke finally couldn't take it anymore.

She picked herself up off the ground, tossing the baby monitor onto the bed on her way out of their room.

Bellamy's crying had stopped by the time she got to the end of the hall and he was instead sitting in the rocking chair with Julia held loosely in his arms. He was very close to being asleep.

"Bell," she whispered. His head shot up and his grip tightened on Jules. "Just me," she said gently.

"Oh," he sighed and stood, holding Jules out to her. Clarke sighed and wished hard that she could just leave Julia with him. But the poor kid was hungry and he didn't have the right parts for that. Instead of leaving, and going to bed though like she almost hoped he would, he sat down, dragged one of the breastfeeding pillows over and laid down, right on top of Jules's carpet.

"What are you doing?" Clarke laughed, frowning apologetically at Jules when she whined in protestation.

"Watching you." He mumbled sleepily. "And Jules." He added, yawning. He was still in his damn uniform, and he was definitely going to fall asleep. "I should go check on the kids." He yawned again. Clarke sighed.

"Don't worry about it, Bell. Just sleep."

"Not tired." He argued.

"Okay," Clarke agreed, trying to keep from laughing at him and disrupting Jules who had already switched sides and was getting sleepy.

He was out before Jules had even completely finished. Clarke put Jules to bed and then made her way to the kids' rooms to check on them like Bellamy had wanted to and left him to sleep on the floor of his smallest baby's room.

She was sitting up wide awake, bloodshot eyes and damp cheeks.

Clarke sighed, softly shutting the door behind her and crawling onto Octavia's bed with her. The younger woman wrapped her arms around her sister in law and they comforted each other.

"Jas is dead?" her voice broke. Clarke nodded wordlessly. "Bell's just sad, not hurt?" she checked. Clarke nodded again.

"He's fine."

"Jasper got shot?"

"Yes," Clarke sighed.

"God, Maya." Octavia realized, shuddering. "Monty, Harper." She added. Really all of them. Everyone in their friend group was losing a huge part of their life. Except Maya lost a husband, Monty lost a best friend, Harper and Monty's unborn baby lost a godfather, the Blake kids were losing an uncle.

Then both Clarke and Octavia let tears fall again and mourned the loss of their friend.

Lincoln had taken Avan and Anabell camping to give Octavia some time to herself, and with that time, she had decided to come spend some quality time with her oldest niece.

Finally, Octavia dozed off, and slowly Clarke managed to escape without waking her and was making her way down the hall to Charlotte and Aurora's room. The older of the two was a much lighter sleeper than her younger sister and was utterly thrilled to be moving into the guest room at the end of the month.

She leaned against the door frame of the girls' bedroom, watched their heavy breathing and peaceful sleeping for a long couple of minutes before softly shutting the door and moving on down the hall to Jake's room. He stirred a little when his mother opened the door.

"Mama?" he whimpered. Clarke smiled gently and moved over to his bed, rubbing her hand up and down his back.

"Go back to sleep, baby." She murmured. He sighed and nuzzled his pillow as he fell back into a deep sleep. Just as she was leaving she heard the sound of Bellamy's nightmare from where he was still sleeping on Jules's floor. She ran down the hall, socks sliding on the hardwood as she tried to get to him before he could wake up his baby girl. "Bellamy," she called, crouching and shaking him awake, ducking the right hook that flew.

She managed to coax him up, down the hall and into their bed, slowly but surely and struggled to get her exhausted husband out of his uniform.

When they finally got into bed, it occurred to Clarke that he hadn't really said anything since she put Jules back to bed. She climbed into bed behind him and he glanced at her over the corner of his eye.

"I'm not…" he started with a broken voice.

"I know." Clarke put her hand on his arm and used it to pull him down next to her. "I know, Bell." She scratched her nails lightly over his back and felt him slowly soften against her. She didn't realize he was crying until she felt the tears on her collarbone and she just kept scratching, feeling the hitch of his chest on a quiet sob.

When he turned to face the wall, Clarke curled herself around him, her arm wrapping around his waist so her hand rested over his heart. Her heart shattered into pieces as he cried himself to sleep, sounding more destroyed than she had ever heard him.

It was almost one am when she woke up to him climbing out of the bed and pulling a shirt on over his head.

"Bell," she sighed, sitting up and rubbing her palms into her eyes.

"Go back to sleep." His voice was rough and gravelly, hoarse from exhaustion and all the excessive crying he had done the night before.

"Bellamy," she hedged.

"Clarke. Just go back to sleep." He repeated. She flinched a little bit at his tone of voice. She watched the guilt flash in his eyes before he turned and left, grabbing his tennis shoes off the dresser.


End file.
